Centre for Knowledge and Interaction Technologies

Modern computing and communication technologies are convergent in a way that has evolved whole new cultures of interpersonal and human-machine interaction. Every aspect of our lives is touched by the new technologies, from a network of embedded processors in our cars, to our cars being networked with our phones, our satellite navigation systems, and other vehicles; with our students spending more time communicating, learning and playing by electronic means than face to face; with our media becoming increasingly technological and our social media leading to a cultural revolution in human interaction; with our supermarkets knowing more about our buying habits than we do; with our society, government and commerce facing more and more challenges from the speed of new technology and the associated social, privacy and security issues.

At the same time technology is not just becoming more ubiquitous, but more intelligent and more autonomous.

The Centre for Knowledge and Interaction Technologies (CKIT) directly faces the challenges of this convergence of human and machine interaction modalities, and contributes to the development of the theory, practice and tools applicable to modern, knowledge-based, data-rich, human-centric systems. As an interdisciplinary and enabling collection of technologies, it both supports activities in other Flinders research areas while at the same time has its own intellectual identity. Each of our research programs addresses at least one of the opportunities, challenges or risks that our technological advancement in communication and computing has brought. We are interested in every aspect of how our technology affects human-machine and human computer interaction, and how our understanding of communication and society, knowledge and thought, is changing as we enter the age of the ubiquitous intelligent machine.

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Programs of research

Within the Centre we have a number of long-term research programs that staff, visitors and higher degree research students contribute to.

  

Spin outs

  • ClevertarTM (CleverMe) - A talking head helper on iPhone/iPad/Android, initial commecialization funded by a Researcher in Business award, being the platform for our mobilehead and webhead product range. 
  • Clipsal HomespeakTM (PDF) (I2Net Orion) - Control your home or C-bus installation by talking to it, initially developed by our undergraduates, popular for people with disabilities.
  • Head XTM- Freely Available Customizable Virtual Head developed under an ARC Thinking Systems SRI, and the platform for our PC-based Talking Thinking Teaching Head product range.
  • ServalTM - Enabling communication between mobile phones after disasters or in areas without mobile network infrastructure.
  • thereitisTM - 3D visualisation technology that leverages the human ability to sift quickly through large sets of related images and find objects of interest. Visit thereitis.com for a demo, and to find out more.
  • YourAmigoTM - The world leader in organic search optimization and deep web search, Yahoo: "Nobody searches the deep web like YourAmigo". Winner of numerous grants and industry awards with a worldwide presence and a clientele of Fortune 500 companies.
  

Further information

We would be happy to provide more information about the School's research programs, the opportunities for higher degree study and scholarship information. For more information, please contact the Centre Director - Professor David Powers - or the coordinators of the research program you are interested in.

Recent successes

  • McIntyre, J., Roche, A., Roddick, J. F., Morgan, D. L. and Metcalfe, M. (2005-2007). Addressing Indigenous complex health, housing and social inclusion issues through critical systems approaches to build workforce capacity. SA Department of Human Services and Neporendi Aboriginal Forum Inc., ARC Linkage: $72,444 (ARC) + $24,000 (Partners) = $96,444.
  • Roddick, J. F. and Calder, P. R. (2006-2008). Managing and Mining Evolving Ontologies through combining Patterns Languages and Data Mining. Royal Australian College of Surgeons and Australian Computer Society, ARC Linkage: $147,000 (ARC) + $49,500 (Partners).
  • Burnham, D. K., Dale, R., Stevens, C. J., Powers, D. M., Davis, C. W., Buchholz, J. M., Kuratate, T., Kim, J., Paine, G. C., Kitamura, C. M., Wagner, M., Moeller, S., Black, A. W., Schultz, T. and Bothe, H. H. (2006-2010). From Talking Heads to Thinking Heads: A Research Platform for Human Communication . ARC Thinking Systems: $3,400,000.
  • Powers, D. M., Clark, C. R., Pope, K. J. and Willoughby, J. O. (2009-2011). Heterodensity neuroimaging techniques for spatiotemporal identification and localization. ARC Discovery: $301,000.
  • Burnham, D., Cox, F., Butcher, A., Fletcher, J., Wagner, M., Epps, J., Ingram, J., Arciuli, J., Togneri, R., Rose, P., Kemp, N., Cutler, A., Dale, R., Kuratate, T., Powers, D., Cassidy, S., Grayden, D., Loakes, D., Bennamoun, M., Lewis, T., Goecke, R., Best, C., Bird, S., Ambikairajah, E., Hajek, J., Ishihara, S., Kinoshita, Y., Tran, D., Chetty, G. and Onslow, M. (2010). The Big Australian Speech Corpus: An audio-visual speech corpus of Australian English. ARC LIEF: $650,000.
  • Bull, M. J., Roddick, J. F. and Sih, A. (2010-2012). Behavioural syndromes and social networks in sleepy lizards. ARC Discovery: $375,000.
  • Leinweber, D. B., Adelson, D. L., Bradshaw, C. J., Cooper, A., Denier, J. and Roddick, J. F. (2011). Enhancement of South Australian high-performance computing facilities. ARC LIEF: $430,000.
  • Roddick, J. F. (2011-2013). Techniques for Active Conceptual Modelling and Guided Data Mining for Rapid Knowledge Discovery. rL-Solutions, ARC Linkage: $163,000 (ARC) + $60,000 (Partners) = $223,000.

Associated undergraduate awards

The following undergraduate awards link directly to research within this Centre.

inspiring achievement